Level: Primary

Location: Computer room

Topic: Nightmares

Language focus: Directions, prepositions & game vocabulary

Game: Victor’s nightmare

Victor suffers from nightmares and in order to get some restful night’s sleep he needs to learn how to face his fears and vanquish them.

Preparation

Download and a copy of Victor’s nightmare walkthrough.  Either print a copy for each pair in your class (a reading) or a single copy (relay dictation).

Pre-play

1. In the classroom do hangman for ‘nightmares‘ and brainstorm vocabulary onto the board.
2. Set up a relay dictation in the classroom with the Victor’s nightmare walkthrough that you downloaded.  Learner’s should take turns to relay the sentences.
3. Allow enough time for your learners to relay dictate a few sentences the take the walkthrough down.
4. Ask learners to pick up their dictation and take it to the computer room.

Play

1. Before your learners sit down put victor’s nightmare walkthrough on the wall and show your learners.
2. Explain to your learners they are going to play a game and use the walkthrough they copied to start the game.  When they have finished what they copied they can take turns (like they did in the classroom) to use the walkthrough on the wall.  This time they don’t have to write it down – they just tell their partner who plays the game.
3. First pair to finish are the champions.

Post Play

Back in the classroom learners use the Victor’s nightmare walkthrough to make a game dictionary.  After having played the game they should be able to visualise parts of the game using the walkthrough and be able to translate sections.

Alternative reading activity

1. Do the pre-play activity above.
2. Take your learners to the computer room and handout a copy of victor’s nightmare walkthrough to each pair.
3. Learners work in pairs with one playing the game and the other reading the walkthrough to them.
4. After 5 minutes say “change!” and get pairs to swap roles.
5. When first pair finishes get them to look some of the walkthrough words up in a dictionary OR do the game again from memory.

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Level: Primary

Location: Computer room

Language focus:  Has got/ is wearing/ colours/ clothes vocabulary/ physical descriptions/ parts of the body

Game: Hero machine

Preparation

1. Either play with heromachine  yourself and both write a physical description of the hero you produce and take a screenshot and print the hero OR download and print a copy of the Superhero Relay Play material (relay dictation text and superhero picture).
2. Read the set up at the bottom of this post.

Preplay

1. Play hangman with ’s u p e r h e r o’
2. Brainstorm some superheroes
3. Elicit some physical descriptions of some of the superheroes on the board (focus on some of the language focus items for this game)
4. Write the name of the superhero you have a picture of up on the board and elicit possible physical descriptions.
5. Learners do a relay dictation of the written description.

Play

1. In the computer room learners use the written description fro the relay dictation to reproduce the superhero.
2. When they have finished learners stand up and compare each superhero on each screen with the printed picture of the superhero.
3. Learners make their own superhero and write a description using the relay dictation text as a model.

Post play

1. Learners print their superheroes out (screen capture at school or at home) and put them on the classroom wall.
2. Taking it in turns they read out the description and others identify the picture.
3. Alternatively learners look at the pictures and predict the description.

How to play with Heromachine

You need to familiarise your learners with hero machine a little so you may either want to present the game in a connected classroom or direct learners through it in the computer room.

1 Choose a body template.  You could do this in the connected classroom by asking the class what you should choose.  e.g. a man or a woman?  Short or tall?

2 As soon as you choose one of the four templates you are given a few loading options.  For the full range of clothes, objects, weapons, companions and body parts etc choose the complete option (the one I usually choose).

3 When your option has loaded click on the little arrow to the right of the lower small window (the one on the bottom) on the right just below where it says ‘component and genre’.  This allows you to open up the different body parts, clothing etc.  Just click on one to add it to your superhero.  Use the slide bar underneath to see more.

4 Use the palette below to add details to the physical appearance of your superhero, access more details by using the slidebar and colour your superhero.  Usually each single detail you have has two aspects to it so you can have two or one colour for each detail you add to your superhero.  For example, you could have green trousers with red stripes.

5 Finally if you learners make any mistakes they just have to click on the item they want to change and then make the change.  This could be changing a hairstyle, clothing or the colour.  Have fun!

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Level: Advanced

Location: Computer room

Topic: Global Warming

Language Focus: Modals of obligation

Game: Global Warming Interactive

“CO2FX is a web based multi-user educational game which explores the relationship of global warming to economic, political and science policy decisions. The game is driven by a systems dynamics model and is presented in a user friendly interface intended for the high school user.”

Preparation

Download and print off enough copies of the CO2FX Global Warming Simulation role cards and print a copy for each 3 learners in your class and cut each card out.

Pre Play

1. If you are in a connected classroom its a nice idea to have the game on the board to help you illustrate the situation.  If you don’t, don’t worry.
2. Explain to your class that Brazil has decided to deal with the global warming issue and brainstorm in open class a few ideas how they might do this.
3. Divide your class into 3 groups or 3 tables (blue, orange and green) of advisors together (see right).  Give out the science advisor (blue) cards to one table, the Policy advisor (orange) cards to the other and the Economic advisor (green) cards to the last table.  Ask them to read the cards then turn them over and summarize the card to the person next to them.
4. Now they make notes on what arguements they might use to achieve the challenge they have been set.

Play #1

1. Ask your learners to stand up and form a group of 3 consisting of one person from each table (see left) and then go to the computer room.
2. Learners sit in their groups of three at a computer.  Because the game itself is not very intuitive it’s a very good idea to get your learners to read the gameguide. It may be a good idea to explain before hand that because of the serious nature of this game that they may not get a chance to play it until next time.  This time is dedicated to understanding how the game works.
3. Learners take notes from the game guide on parts of the game that are relevant to their role.

Play #2

1. Learners sit in the groups they were in when they read the game guide in the computer room (see advisors gaming diagram above) and compare their ideas on how the game is played.  They may use any notes they took from last class.
2. In their groups you return to the computer room and play the game.

Post Play

1. The advisors all sit together on three separate tables (see Advisors Together diagram above).
2. They compare their success at the game and try and establish the best way to play the game.  This will involve feedback on not only their role in the game but those of the other advisors.
3. Each table makes a ’strategy guide’ consisting of a list of tips on how best to play the game.
4. Learners return to their computer game teams (see advisors gaming diagram above) and compare their ’strategy guides’.
5. In open class decide on the best tips and write them on the board and learners copy it down. (You could do this as a relay dictation).

Extra Activity

Return to the classroom and play the game using the ’strategy guide’ from step 5 in Post Play.

OR

Learners use the ’strategy guide’ from step 5 in Post Play to play the game at home.  They could then report to the class and find out who did the best.  That person then tells the class what it was that they that made them do so well.

Useful Language

We should . . .

It has to be . . .             lowered                    raised                      kept the same

We must . . .

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Skills focus: Listening & Reading

Location: Connected classroom/ computer room

Language Focus: Modals of Obligation

Game: State of Debate

“It’s the year 2020 and Just-Co have banned hoodies, and you’ve just been spotted wearing one. Can you talk your way out of trouble using your English Language skills?”

In this game you are spotted by a regulator (police) who approaches you and tells you about your crime in a video sequence.  You then have to read and choose from three options (written text) on how you deal with the situation and see how they react.  Other situations appear in the game like giving advice to a friend and trying to get into a disco past a bouncer.

Preparation.

• If you are doing this in the computer room treat it as an autonomous listening & reading activity.  As you monitor help learners understand the game’s language content.  The colleague who showed me this game had his learners play the game as a reader/ listener.
• Presentation on modal verbs of permission and obligation if you are doing this in a connected classroom as an open class activity.

Play

NOTE There is a button on the bottom left hand side that provides you with subtitles for the video sequences in the game.

1. Play the video intro and ask a few concept questions such as “When is it set?”, “What crimes are there?”, “What sort of government is it?”
2. Divide the class into pairs.  They watch the video sequence and should ask their partner 3 wh- questions.
3. They then read and discuss what option they should choose before taking a class vote.
4. They watch the video sequence that shows a reaction to their choice and learners repeat from step 2.
5. Play the game for as long as you think is necessary.

Post activity

• Discuss in class which were the best ways to deal with each situation.
• The situations in the game may be extreme but what are the unwritten rules and regulations affecting young people today.  Discuss.
• Write their own rules and regulations for adults.
• Write a role play between a ‘regulator’ and an adult breaking the law.

Homework activity

• Learners write a composition about advice they give to friends, dress codes or laws and regulations that effect them as young people but not the adults.
• If learners didn’t finish the game in class they could continue at home.  You could ask them to take notes using a simple table:

There is also a ’save’ button which I’ve never used so in theory you could save a game and come back to it in later classes.  Whatever you choose to do I hope you enjoy playing the game.

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Location: Computer room

Topic: Food shortage, flood and earthquake disasters

Language focus: Writing

Game: Disaster watch

An Educational game commissioned by Christian Aid to raise awareness of the threat of Food shortages, flood and earthquakes in a Central American country.

Pre-Play

I started this activity in a connected classroom by dictating these four questions:

1. What’s his name?
2. Where does he live?
3. What disasters /do they watch for?
4. How many disaster clues /do you have to /watch for?

Then I played the video intro to the game until learners had all the answers to the questions.  In feedback I elicited the three disasters (earthquake, flood and food shortages) on to the board and put learners into groups and gave them the task of predicting what possible ‘warning signs’ there might be before each disaster. Learners brainstorm them into three categories which they draw in their note books.

Play

Learners take their notebooks to the computer room.  Sit learners in pairs at a computer.  Direct them to the game and let them play the game Disaster watch.  Stress that they have to complete their tables in their notebooks.  There is enough text in the game for learners to get some good reading practice.  As an alternative/ extra activity you may like to get them to record any difficult language items.

Post Play

Back in the classroom feedback on the answers.  Ask learners if there were any warning signs that they predicted at the beginning that i) appeared in the game ii) didn’t appear in the game.

Extra Activity

Learners write a short composition entitled “The warning signs for __________” and write about one of the three disasters.  They can structure their composition in 4 parts:

1 About the Country – Learners write a little background information about the country.  They can use information from, the intro, research, what they know.

2 A disaster – a little bit about the disaster they have chosen to write about (what it is, what it does, who it effects etc).

3 The Warning signs – Use their notes from the game to complete this paragraph.

4 What can be done – What possible solutions there are and how best to combat the disaster (later parts of the game will give learners some ideas).

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Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Live listening

Language Focus: It’s something you use to + verb / for + gerund

Game: Mystery of Time and Space (MOTAS)

This game was probably one of the first point-and-click games I used with a class and many consider it a classic ‘escape the room game’.  It has got over a hundred rooms in which you have to find objects, work out puzzles and escape from the room.  What’s nice about this game is that if you hover your mouse over the objects in a room it is annotated (see below).  This is worth pointing out to your learners at a very early stage.

The pre-gaming activity below orientates learners to the annotation function within MOTAS.   You need to do this in a connected classroom before moving to a computer room.

Preparation

Print off a copy of the MOTAS walkthrough (rooms 1-8) or use an electronic copy of the MOTAS walkthrough (rooms 1-21) or the MOTAS video walkthrough (rooms 1- 5) to ‘dictate’ the game play to your learners.

Pre-Play

1. Present the game to the class and show them the first room.
2. Tell them they have 2 minutes to write down the name of as many objects as possible that they can see on the screen (whether they may use dictionaries is up to you).
3. When they have finished ask them to swap lists with another group.
4. Tell them that they get 2 points if the name of the object appears on the screen and 1 point if you accept it.
5. Move your cursor over each object on the screen.  Learners give 2 points if the object name appears.
6. Add up the marks and hand the list back to the original group.
7. Groups can now argue over the 1 point score words on their list e.g. ‘Locker’ is annotated but you can give 1 point if they say ‘cupboard’

Play

1. In a computer room tell learners they have to listen to you tell them how to escape.  The first one out the room and says stop gets 1 point.
2. They have to either find the annotation to find an object or ask you to describe the object to them e.g. Learner: “What’s a pillow?” Teacher: “You use it to put your head on when you go to sleep.”
3. Use a copy of the walkthrough or the video walkthrough to dictate to your learners how they should complete the game.

Post Play

As learners to write down some of the objects they remember from the game and to write a definition for the objects using the grammar:

It’s an object you use to + bare infinitive

It’s an object you use for + gerund

Alternative activity

Instead of doing a live listening activity or gaming dictation you could give learners a reading in which they have to sequence jumbled walkthrough sentences by playing the game in the computer room.

If you would like to try this why not download a copy of the MOTAS Sequencing Activity and make enough copies for each group in your computer room.

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Level: Intermediate & above

Location: Computer room

Topic: Reading and dictionary work

Language Focus: Non defining relative clauses

Game: Anika’s Odyssey

This is a fun walkthrough reading activity for the computer room followed by a writing activity using non defining relative clauses.  You may also choose to do some recording vocabulary work during the game so that they have some language to work on when they return to the classroom.

Pre Play

Once you have done a presentation on non defining relative clauses (yawn!) tell your learners they have worked very well and that they are now going to go to the computer room to play a game (hooray!).  Good news is they will enjoy it a lot and there is a walkthrough to help them.  Bad news is that they have to make a note of any words in blue that they don’t know.  For this reason they need a pen/ pencil and notebook.

Play

1 Tell learners to open up two internet explorer pages.

2 In one internet explorer page direct learners to this site.

3 Learners copy and paste the address into the other internet explorer page.

4 Learners play the game on one page and read the walkthrough in the other.

5 Monitor to make sure they are playing taking notes of difficult language.

6 Stop the game when one team finishes playing and has got ten words noted down (slow them down by getting them to write down more and with a translation).

Post Play

Learners write ten non-defining relative clause sentences using words from the game.

Learners take it in turns to read out their non-defining relative clause sentences but NOT the word from the game.

The first learner to put their hand up and say the correct word from the game gets a point.

When you feel the activity has gone on long enough declare a winner.

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Level: Intermediate & above

Location: Computer room

Topic: Writing direct speech in a cartoon

Language Focus: Direct speech, present tenses etc

Time: 30 minutes

Game: Zimmer Twins

Screenshot of Zimmer Twins game

Preparation

1 Play the game yourself and make a note of any language to preteach that appear in the four file categories:

Screenshot of the four types of clips

2 In class ask your learners to make a table in their books with four columns and to label them ‘talking’, ‘doing’, ‘feeling’ and ‘writing’ (based on categories in clip screenshot above).

3 Call out vocabulary (that appears in the game and learners have to write the words in the correct category.

4 Encourage learners to ask for the meaning of any unfamiliar words.

5 Go to the computer room and direct learners to the site.  Click on ‘Make a movie’ and then ‘Make from scratch’.

Play

You should tell tell your learners that they are going to make a cartoon by listening to your instructions.  Tell them you are going to tell them the order which they have to use the ‘clip icons’.  This is to make sure that they concentrate on the speech bubble and star icon which involves learners having to write something.  Other than that they can write the story that they want.  Allow them to discuss the storyline as well as what to write between each ‘dictation’.

Also tell them that they can change the person, place and other things by clicking on the green writing in the middle.

Dictate the icons in the following order:  STAR (clapperboard), SPEECH BUBBLE, SPEECH BUBBLE, SMILEY, RUNNER, YOU DECIDE, RUNNER, SMILEY, SPEECH BUBBLE, SPEECH BUBBLE, YOU DECIDE etc

Learners write their story.  When they have finished they can go and look at the cartoons their classmates have done.

Alternative

In the preparation stage instead of asking your learners to make a table, ask them to tear up a piece of scrap paper into four pieces.  Then ask them to draw a “speech bubble, a stick man running, a smiley face and a star”.  Learners place the four icons they’ve drawn in the middle of the table.  Learners play this game in groups of 2s, 3s or 4s.  Call out the vocabulary from the game and learners have to grab the correct icon from the middle of the table.  The fastest to get the right one is the winner.  Mix the vocabulary you call out with words they are familiar with and possibly unfamiliar with.

You could also control the activity a little more by asking your learners to include targetted language. e.g. if you’ve just done a specific tense, phrasal verbs or other language area, then tell them they have to include 5 examples of that in their story.

NOTE

The disadvantage of this game is that it doesn’t save your work unless you have registered as a member with the site.  It’s free and doesn’t require too much information so you should consider joining.

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Location: Computer room

Skills focus: Reading

Game: Treasure of Big Totem

PREPARATION

Two possibilities:

1 CLASSROOM - Print off a copy of the story and read the tale in class.  Learners predict the most important elements of the story needed to play the game and underline them.  They then use dictionaries to check up any difficult vocabulary.

2 COMPUTER ROOM – Learners open three explorer windows (the game, the Tale of the Treasure of Big Totem, and an online dictionary)

PLAY

Learners read “The tale of the Treasure of Big Totem” and play the game as a comprehension check.

POST PLAY

Focus on language elements in the Tale that are unfamiliar to your learners.  Having played the game they may now be able to make educated guesses at the meaning.  If you all have a copy of the Tale ask your learners questions about the language.  e.g.

What’s a spade?”

“What’s a pick axe?”

“The spade was leaning against the totem.  What does leaning against mean?”

“What did you do with the rope?”

HOMEWORK

Learners write out a walkthrough.

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Level:  Advanced / Proficiency

Location: Computer room / homework

Language skill: Reading

The Game:  Avalon is a text based role playing fantasy adventure game based on Dungeons and dragons, the stories of Tolkien and the Ancient Greek myths.  You read the story and make choices in the fantasy world as they are made available to you (e.g. how to interact with in-game characters, what directions to go in, which quests to take).  The choices you make will effect how the story unfolds and how your game character develops.  An example of an Avalon screenshot is on the right here.  You have the main body of text, a tool bar on the right and a blue window at the bottom to type in your choices/ instructions and interactions with the in game characters.

Preparation

Ask your students to access Avalon home page outside of class time.

They will have to think of a fictional name for their character and a password to be able to save their progress and access their game elsewhere and at a later date.

Activity

Once your learners have created their characters you can use this game in a number of ways:

1 A quiet reading activity – Sometimes computer room activities can seem like too much work and too little quiet time.  Use the computer room as an opportunity for learners to ‘play’ the game while having you on hand to answer any language queries.

2 A fast finishers activity.  Sometimes learners may finish a computer room activity earlier than their class mates.  Setting aAvalon as a reading task means that they do not disrupt the computer room activity for others and they are also getting reading skills practice.

3 Online dictionary work – the Avalon text contains a lot of examples of language used for dramatic effect.  As a result a lot of vocabulary may be unfamiliar to your learners.  Learners can read the text with the help of an online dictionary to help them reach a deeper understanding of the text.

4 Recording language – Learners can record useful language themselves making a note of the word(s), marking the stress, the word form (adjective, verb, noun etc), example sentences using the new word(s), and a definition in English.

5 Recorded language activities – Any language that has been recorded in the game can be used in classroom activities such as word formation (recording other forms of the recorded word(s) i.e. its verb form, noun form, adverb form etc)

6 Diary keeping/ report making – Learners can keep a diary or make reports (possibly posted on a class blog) of the choices, direction and progress they have made in the game.  This is helpful if learners wish to exchange help, tips, advice and game observations.

7 Presentation – Learners can give class presentations on their in game progress using any game notes they have made.  This can serve to help others, or gain help from others and makes the reading experience more interactive, interesting and integrated.

8 Periphery reading – There are a number of online sites that offer information about the game including a wiki which includes links to lists of in-game creatures, characters, places, potions etc, as well as other resources.

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